Posts Tagged ‘ocean health’

Open the below photos in a full-screen slideshow in Flickr

May 23, 2010 – At Sea, 34º 38’N, 120º 42’W
By Herb McCormick

Adjacent to the harbor in Santa Barbara, California, right next door to the fine facilities (and folks) at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, is a restaurant called the Breakwater, a place we’d come to frequent over the last several days. The three-egg omelets at the Breakwater are to die for; so, too, are the huevos rancheros, the turkey/jack cheese/avocado scramble, the perfectly buttered sourdough toast, the icy cold orange juice and the endless cups of hot coffee. At an outdoor table with the Sunday New York Times to my left, and the L.A. Times to my right – it is wise in life to strive for symmetry and balance – I really can’t imagine a better way to fritter away a sunny California morning.

Man, I wish I were there. Except that writing about all that food at this precise, bouncy and extremely uncomfortable moment almost made me barf.

That’s because today on Ocean Watch we are once again engaged with the elements, or more specifically, the tossed and roiled Pacific Ocean, which this afternoon was anything but pacified. The bad news is that we’re currently getting flicked around like a bathtub toy in seas ranging from 5 to, say, 12 or 14 feet and winds in the mid-20-knot range; the good news is we’ve rounded Point Conception, also known as the Cape Horn of California.

How did we find ourselves here? It’s an excellent question, and I’m happy to explain. Briefly.

Anyone who’s been anywhere near the coast of California the last few days knows it’s been blowing the dogs off the chains, with steady winds at times in excess of thirty knots and gusts above fifty. We’ve been waiting for a window to depart for Monterey for several days now. Yesterday we were bored enough to take a drive out Highway 101 to have a look at the coast, which was truly ugly. But last night called for a brief lull so skipper Mark Schrader made the call to get underway.

So, at 0230 this morning, we made ready to set sail. The NOAA weather radio forecast was still pretty sporty, with a high wind advisory until 6 a.m. and offshore buoy updates reporting winds at 25-30 knots in various locations up and down the coast. Overhead, the flag in the marina was snapping and cracking in the breeze. A lull? Um, not so much.

About 35 miles to the west lay Point Conception. Two years ago, when we delivered Ocean Watch north to Seattle soon after her purchase, we rounded it on a sun-soaked afternoon in winds around 10 knots. We knew today would be a different movie, and the idea was to head as far as a little anchorage called Cojo just to the east of the point, and re-evaluate things at that point. If it was truly snotty, we could duck in and hide, a tactic my old sailing friends Lin and Larry Pardey had done before and highly recommended. With this strategy in mind, off we went.

Motor-sailing with a triple-reef main, we made pretty good time to the point, aided by a favorable current that was a double-edge sword; we enjoyed the extra knot and more of speed, but not the seas that were stacked up due to the wind-against-current scenario. At 1000 hours, however (10 a.m. Sunday), we were abeam of California’s Cape Horn, so named because it’s difficult to negotiate and has caused its share of shipwrecks. In fact, ominously, we could easily see a sailboat high and dry on its shores. But we were doing okay so the skipper decided to press onward.

First mate Dave Logan remembered the day we sailed around the real Cape Horn last January. “If this is supposedly another Cape Horn, why aren’t we flying a spinnaker in a 20-knot tailwind?” he wondered. Yup, that would’ve been sweet…but not today.

We carried on, noting the long series of offshore oilrigs, to seaward, and the dusty outline of the Santa Ynez mountains rising from the coastline. A couple of hours later we were around the other significant waypoint of Cape Arguello, dotted with buildings large and small at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Once out into the Pacific, the seaway became miserable. For now, let’s leave it at that.

Oh, just one more thing: It’s cold out here, and temperatures this evening are forecast to plunge into the forties, not counting wind chill. Last week, I went home for a few days and, most intelligently, deposited much of my best cold-weather gear there, figuring I wouldn’t need it any more. I can just about see my wonderful Patagonia parka, which got me snugly through the Arctic, sitting right on my bed back in Newport, R.I., where it’s doing nobody any good.

Drats.

-Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson

*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos

*To add a comment to this story click on the comment link below the post title. Please direct your messages for the crew to crew@aroundtheamericas.org instead of submitting them here. Thanks for following the Around the Americas Expedition.

Open the below photos in a full-screen slideshow in Flickr

May 20, 2010 – Santa Barbara, California
By Herb McCormick

Everybody’s goo-goo about GaGa. After roughly six months in South America on our voyage Around the Americas, it was easy to imagine that there’d be a bit of culture shock upon Ocean Watch’s return to the United States. The modern world moves quickly, particularly in the cycles of news, sports, arts and entertainment, so when the crew sailed over the border into San Diego two weeks ago, it was reasonable to assume that it would take a while to get back up to speed on several fronts.

For me, this entire notion was personified and driven home by the recording artist known as Lady GaGa.

Look, even when I’m back home in Rhode Island on a continual basis, “plugged in” is not a term that would describe my grasp of current culture in any way, shape or form. But since I’ve returned stateside, I can’t seem to get away from someone called Lady GaGa. In the last couple of weeks she’s been prominently featured in multiple stories in The New York Times and The New Yorker, and I got another dose of GaGa when I loaded a bunch of new music onto my 12-year-old daughter’s iPod. In fact, it was that experience that acquainted me with a whole host of new and interesting singers, including Ke$ha (the dollar sign is not a typo), Flo Rida (the rapper, not the state) and will.i.am.

I was actually pretty excited about the last guy, as the name sounded not unlike a famous character from an author of my own youth, the one-and-only Dr. Seuss. “Is he any relation to Sam I Am?” I asked Maggie. She shook her head sadly, but not unsympathetically. I believe she was truly sorry to be in the company of someone so helplessly and hopelessly clueless.

(By the way, I’d already downloaded Ke$ha’s new album, “Animal” – and, like, whatever happened to The Monkees? – before looking at the names of her “tunes,” which include “Party At a Rich Dude’s House,” “Take It Off,” “Back$tabber,” “Ki$$ and Tell,” “Hungover,” “Boots and Boys,” and the upbeat, chirpy “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes.” I will not make that mistake again. I have the feeling that rounding Cape Horn is going to seem like a cakewalk compared to raising a teenage girl. We will now return to our regularly scheduled blog.)

It’s been over a year since any of us saw a new movie, either, but I was pleased that an old favorite, Jeff Bridges, had finally been recognized with an Oscar, and was amazed to learn that his counterpart in the awards categories, Sandra Bullock, is now considered a serious, accomplished actress. (Of course, the astonishing tales of her tattooed, loser husband trumped even that news.) Even so, I felt so out of it by everything that I felt like crawling into a Hurt Locker, until I remembered I have no idea what that is.

Another thing we hadn’t seen in a long while is the actual paper edition of the Sunday Times. Regular visitors to this site, or those who’ve attended any of our lectures or presentations, know that our mantra is “one island, one ocean,” and that our message is “whatever happens in the green zone – land – effects the blue – water – and vice versa.” Last Sunday’s column by Times columnist Thomas Friedman underscored that very message in a most eloquent way.

We are living, writes Friedman, “in an increasingly integrated world where we’ll all need to be guided by the simple credo of the global nature-preservation group Conservation International, and that is: ‘Lost there, felt here.’

“Conservation International,” he continues, “coined that phrase to remind us that our natural world and climate constitute a tightly integrated system, and when species, forests and ocean life are depleted in one region, their loss will eventually be felt in another. And what is true for Mother Nature is true for markets and societies.” He goes on to explain how the collapse of the Greek economy has rattled the entire European Union and Wall Street, too.

“Yes, such linkages have been around for years,” writes Friedman. “But today so many more of us are just so much more deeply intertwined with each other and the natural world… Indeed, in a world where our demand for Chinese-made sneakers produces pollution that melts South American glaciers, in a world where Greek tax-evasion can weaken the euro, threaten the stability of Spanish banks and tank the Dow, our values and ethical systems eventually have to be harmonized as much as our markets. To put it differently, as it becomes harder to shield yourself from the other guy’s irresponsibility, both he and you had better become more responsible.”

(Note to Maggie McCormick, hopefully in the far, distant future: There’s something to consider before you party at a rich dude’s house.)

More seriously, Friedman quotes an author named Dov Seidman, who urges us to adopt “sustainable values: values that inspire us in behaviors that literally sustain our relationships with one another, with our communities, with our institutions, and with our forests, oceans and climate.”

Amen, Tom Friedman.

Here in Santa Barbara, the crew aboard Ocean Watch is eager to resume our relationship with the Pacific Ocean, but at the moment remain harbor bound as the forecast outside our sheltered dock calls for northwest winds gusting to fifty knots. For the moment, our next leg to Monterey is on hold. In the meantime, we continue to enjoy the hospitality of our most gracious hosts at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum and the many attractions of the beautiful Southern California city. Plus, our layover has provided the opportunity to welcome literally hundreds of Santa Barbara students aboard Ocean Watch, which is always the best part of any port visit.

As far as our return to the states is concerned, reassuringly, not everything in current affairs was topsy-turvy, and there were still examples that the status quo hadn’t been completely undone. After all, the Republicans and Democrats still despise each other and can’t put aside their blind rage and blatant self-interests for the benefit of anyone, other than themselves (sustainable values, anyone?), and the good old Boston Bruins, on the verge of a magic season for the first time in eons, again collapsed in epic fashion during the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Oh yes, Lady GaGa would agree: It’s great to be back.

-Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson

*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos

*To add a comment to this story click on the comment link below the post title. Please direct your messages for the crew to crew@aroundtheamericas.org instead of submitting them here. Thanks for following the Around the Americas Expedition.

Open the below photos in a full-screen slideshow in Flickr

May 18, 2010 – Santa Barbara, California
By Dr. Michael Reynolds

Today we are in our fifth day in Santa Barbara. This town is a splendid experience, but before we can talk about it we still need to catch up on the Los Angeles and Santa Catalina Island visits. This we will do today and we will be fully up to date. As before I will provide a series of journal entries that highlight the receptions, lectures and school presentations. Material for this letter comes from Captain Schrader’s daily log and from my own notes.

Sunday 9 May, Dinner at the Walton’s.

Before we leave San Diego, I want to mention our delight at getting to know the famous basketball player, Bill Walton. Bill was a powerhouse for UCLA and went on to a career in the pros. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993. When he heard we were coming to San Diego he came to the dock to meet us. Herb, our official sports fanatic, talked about that experience in his blog that day.  After Herb left town for a short family visit in Newport, Bill insisted that all of the OW crew and guests join both him and his wife, Laurie, for dinner at their house. Sorry Herb! The Walton home is a warm, open bungalow complex tucked into the hills behind Balboa Park, just a few minutes from the marina.  In spite of a busy calendar, Bill wanted one last opportunity, in his words, to thank the team for the important education and awareness work we’re doing.  I’ll admit, that’s nice to hear, and it’s wonderful to have his support.

My son, a news anchor, sports fanatic and trivia guru, told me Bill was a well-known fan of the Grateful Dead. Sure enough, the Dead were at full volume when we arrived, and in the middle of his living room was the largest array of drums I, an old frustrated drummer, have ever sat behind. The drums were provided by Mickey Hart (the Grateful Dead drummer) with active Walton enthusiasm. Plenty of drumming goes on in this room, much to the chagrin of the neighbors I expect.

Monday 10 May, The trip up from San Diego was not easy.

Finally, we are tied up at the California Yacht Club in Marina Del Rey. This simple hop from San Diego was a battle and we are all a little tired. To be here on schedule, we left San Diego immediately after returning from the Walton’s. The main sail was hoisted before turning outbound toward Point Loma. We expected an easy, slightly rolling sea, but what we found wasn’t so pleasant. Instead a strong northwest wind blew into our faces, and the waves came from at least three different directions which produced what are called “square waves.”  It was the Baja Bash revisited.  For several aboard, it was a rude introduction to Southern California sailing and an impossible way to digest a meal. After a thorough bashing and a stalled engine just two miles from our dock, we pulled cleanly into our slip at the California Yacht Club (33º58’55.24”N, 118º26’52.15”W). We owe a debt of gratitude to sailing legend Jim Kilroy and his elegant wife Nellie for our welcome to Los Angeles.

Tuesday 11 May, School tours on OW and at Pt. Dume school.

Our time in LA has been busy but productive. Today, in order to meet our obligations we had to split into two groups. While Dave Logan and Roxanne hosted visits from eight LA inner-city area schools, which included classroom presentations as well as a boat tours, David Thoreson, Kirsty, Mark and I had the pleasure of visiting the Point Dume Marine Science Elementary School in Malibu.  The 260 kids in this school welcomed us with a concert, a choir, a cheer and a stack of handmade ocean conservation “books” with their ideas of how to help heal the ocean. This elementary school has one of the most sophisticated marine science labs we’ve seen in any school anywhere.

Our school visit was followed by a luncheon at the sea side home of PTA president, Kelly Meyer.  Kelly is a dedicated ocean conservationist and she wanted us to meet a few of her colleagues and friends. Gabrielle Reece (volleyball/model/actress) offered her support. Anna Cummins and Marcus Eriksen are part of a growing community who are calling our attention to the growing garbage patches in gyres in all the world’s oceans. Coretta Anderson is a director of the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). (Go to the NRDC home page and listen to NRDC attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. discuss alternate energy options.) I’ll stop here and just say we were humbled by the respect and support we received from all these new friends.

Wednesday 12 May, continued School visits toOcean Watch.

This is our second day of school visits to Ocean Watch. Yesterday and today we have received school groups, public and parochial, to Ocean Watch. Many of these schools are from the poorer neighborhoods in L.A., but these are kids with goals and a future. It is such a pleasure to be in a classroom with boys and girls who literally sit on the edges of their seats and soak up everything we say. If I ask, “Who knows what pH is?” every hand raises. They know their geography, history and science and they participate with a glowing joy that fills me with hope and confidence in a better future. The Kilroy foundation plays a big role in the lives of these children. It’s great to see wealthy people making such significant contributions to the future. As we have seen, many are, and for that we are grateful.

Thursday 13 May, Goodbye L.A. and a visit to Santa Catalina Island.

Today we are visiting the USC Wrigley Institute for Marine Sciences on Santa Catalina Island. In the early 1900s the Chicago-based Wrigley family (chewing gum and Wrigley Field) was negotiating to buy a huge tract of Los Angeles property when, as an aside, an enterprising real estate broker said that for a mere three million dollars more they could also buy Catalina Island – so they did, sight unseen.  It turned out to be a happy purchase which eventually led to the establishment of this research and learning asset. The campus was quiet at this time but we gave a presentation to the children and staff, then were given a tour by Sean Conner, the assistant dean. One activity here is a marine sciences camp for inner-city children of all ages from Los Angeles schools. According to Sean many of these children have not even seen stars, let alone marine animals.

Dr. Bill Nelson is a permanent resident and microbiologist at Wrigley Institute, lucky guy. He kindly showed us his laboratory and we discussed his research. The lab tour and discussion were brief and far out of my field of expertise, but maybe I can give you an idea of the research and its profound implications. By using a very modern gene sequencing machine he and his staff are examining a deep ocean bacteria called “archaebacteria,” (also called archaea).

Note: Bacteria are a major part of the world’s biomass. They are everywhere. For instance in a gram of soil (1/28 ounce) there are typically 40 million bacterial cells, and there are a million bacterial cells in a milliliter (1/5 teaspoon) of fresh water. In all the world there are approximately five nonillion (5×10^30) bacteria on Earth.

Archaea are very important. They are a primitive form of bacteria. Most live in extreme environments, such as hyperthermal vents, where they are called extremophyles. Other Archaea species are not extremophiles and live in ordinary temperatures and salinities. Some even live in your guts! Archaea requires neither sunlight for photosynthesis as do plants, or oxygen. They absorb CO2, N2, or H2S and give off methane gas as a waste product the same way humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Scientists are hard at work trying to understand how the ocean absorbs CO2 and it is possible these play a big role in climate adjustment.

Another topic on which Dr. Nelson is working is a tiny beetle that eats holes in the rubber hoses in automobiles. Scobicias declivis is a tiny wood-eating beetle which is also known as the “lead cable borer.” It was first discovered on Catalina Island in the 1980’s. Last June the 8 mm (0.35”) insect changed its diet from wood to plastic and rubber hoses. Fuel dock gas pumps, portable gas tanks and automobile hoses began to spring leaks from tiny holes. Today we are in Santa Barbara and the newspaper headlines are talking of an infestation. We wonder if this tiny bug will do what green politicians and environmentalists are trying in vain to do: drastically reduce our dependence on the automobile.

Finally…

With this blog we are, more or less, caught up on our port calls and activities since hitting the coast of the U.S.A. In many ways our voyage has changed from long at-sea legs to a series of short hops up the west coast back to Seattle. We will be in Seattle exactly one month from today, on June 17. The core crew are pulling at the reins, the barn is in sight. But before going home we need to complete our program in Santa Barbara then make stops in Monterey, San Francisco, Portland and Port Townsend. Tomorrow we will write about our Santa Barbara experience then on Thursday we head for Monterey. This is so much fun!

-Dr. Michael Reynolds with photographs by David Thoreson

*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos

*To add a comment to this story click on the comment link below the post title. Please direct your messages for the crew to crew@aroundtheamericas.org instead of submitting them here. Thanks for following the Around the Americas Expedition.

Open the below photos in a full-screen slideshow in Flickr

May 15, 2010 – San Barbara, California
By Zeta Strickland and Dr. Michael Reynolds

Our inimitable writer, Herb McCormick, is away for a few days on personal leave so we are without our literary core and our usual daily blog. This is a problem because so much has happened to us since we arrived in San Diego that we feel an urge to communicate and praise our experience and our hosts.

We need to catch up on the past ten days. To do this we will share the events of the past days by offering a series of unfortunately brief journal entries.  Since arriving in San Diego on May 4 our simple sailing lives have changed completely. The welcoming events we have enjoyed in San Diego, Los Angeles, and now Santa Barbara leave us dazed. The educators at Pacific Science Center have arranged a contiguous string of school visits, open houses, and receptions. Environmentalists and research institutions have generously made time for us to visit, interview and tour.  Family and friends, showing their love after months of separation, are meeting us at each dock. We are no longer sailors and in this daze the days just scoot by. We begin this log ten days ago in San Diego.

Zeta, 5 May

As Ocean Watch pulled up to the dock at the San Diego Maritime Museum, a group of nearby elementary students were gathering for their overnight Living History Program at the museum; as we quickly learned, these overnight programs run on the museum’s tall ships most of the week. The students break into watches, learn basic sailing skills such as knot tying and navigation as well as the rich maritime history of the ships they are staying on. Each morning as we would start work on Ocean Watch, no matter how early, we could hear the students doing their own work- raising a sail or singing a song. To be partnered with an institution with as strong an educational program as the Maritime Museum was an amazing partnership for the Around the Americas team, and set the stage for a great week.

Michael, 6 May

What a treasure this museum is! So little time and I need days to wander around in here. Classic square-riggers like the three masted Star of India and the Surprise, from the Russell Crowe movie “Master and Commander.” I walked the decks and recalled the eighteen Patrick O’Brian books I have read; Captain Jack Aubrey and the incredible doctor, Stephen Maturin walking the decks or sipping Madeira in the captain’s mess. You can hear the overnight kids singing pirate songs in the evenings. The showers and toilets are located in the Surprise and this morning I just had to call my friend and O’Brian fan, Norm Nelson, to say “Hey Norm, I’m currently taking a shower in the H.M.S. Surprise.”

Zeta, 6 May

Our first education program took place in the Maritime Museum and included nearly 80 students from across Washington and Arizona. No, this wasn’t part of an elaborate field trip; this was our ongoing distance learning program. Our partner in the distance learning is Washington Virtual Academies, and students from this group have met with the crew monthly as Ocean Watch has traveled around South America. Topics have ranged from ocean currents and weather, the geography and conditions around Cape Horn, fishing practices, and the Galapagos. This month several of the crew, including special guest crew David Thoreson’s 9 year old nephew, Jayce, shared images and highlights from the voyage. You can download and listen to this hour long session – go to the Distance Learning education page to listen and learn more about this program.

Michael, 6 May, Scripps Institute of Oceanography

As an old oceanographer I am so pleased to visit this premier center of scientific excellence. I was a student at the University of Washington in Seattle the first time I came to Scripps. Seattle is beautiful in its misty, evergreen way, but there is simply no comparison to the panoramic setting of this place. Buildings tucked into the bluffs of La Jolla, bathed in light and ocean air, a serene architectural wonder. “How,” I wondered back then, “does anyone get anything done?” It’s just too perfect.

The director, Dr. Tony Haymet, has welcomed us royally. We spent the day touring the different labs and talking to leading investigators. A major research emphasis here is climate. The most important climate record, the Keeling CO₂ curve, was developed here. Over the last fifty years this record verified with great precision an increase in atmospheric CO₂ from 315 to 380 parts per million (0.038%) and thus began a new era in climate science.  Andrew Dickson leads the ocean chemistry group at Scripps today. He is a leader in ocean acidification studies and has developed pH standards that are used for quality pH measurements around the world.  The ocean absorbs approximately a third of man-made CO₂ emissions, including those from fossil-fuel use, cement production, and deforestation. CO₂ taken up by the ocean decreases the pH of the water and leads to a combination of chemical changes collectively known as ocean acidification.

Dr. Ramanathan is an expert in the study of aerosols and how aerosols, airborne fine particles, affect climate. Coming from India, Dr. Ramanathan seeks ways to both alleviate climate change and at the same time improve living conditions in rural India where open wood stoves are used for cooking. Smoke from the millions of open fires adds considerable ash to the air, reduces local health, and absorbs sunlight which increases global warming. In a few trial villages the women have been encouraged to disband open wood fires for high-efficiency stoves. We were excited to hear about the program’s growth and how it combines good science with humanitarian aid.

Finally, at the end of the day it was our turn to give back. At a reception at the new auditorium we presented our travels and humble research to these people who have contributed so mightily to defining all the issues we are trying to make known around the Americas.

Zeta, 8-9 May, Birch Aquarium and Open House

The crew spent Saturday afternoon at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps as part of their ongoing Sea days. Visitors explored our tent, built a food web and learned about the expedition, and tried on our survival suits- no small feat in the 75 degree heat considering the suits are designed to keep you warm in arctic waters. The aquarium even brought out their King Penguin on Wheels for display near our photos of King Penguins on the Falkland Islands.  Several people we met at the aquarium came to our open house on Ocean Watch on Sunday. Nearly 200 people visited, exploring the boat, talking to crew and trying out our submersible ROV from the MIT Sea Perch program.
Finally,
our time in San Diego went quickly by and nearly without notice we found ourselves in Los Angeles. The trip up was short but the weather was as nasty as we have seen. A strong north wind and ocean waves from at least three different directions made for a most uncomfortable passage.  After four days in L.A. we paid a short visit to the University of Southern California’s Wrigley Marine Research Institute on Catalina Island then yesterday we pressed on to Santa Barbara.  Tomorrow we will catch on these stops.

-Zeta Strickland and Dr. Michael Reynolds with photographs by David Thoreson

*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos

*To add a comment to this story click on the comment link below the post title. Please direct your messages for the crew to crew@aroundtheamericas.org instead of submitting them here. Thanks for following the Around the Americas Expedition.